UpFront

diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development

Pavel Machek has discovered a very serious bug
in the 2.4 kernel. On January 1 of the year
9223372034708485227, all 2.4 systems will stop
processing commands. Although some pundits may claim
that there is no need to worry about events that
will occur nine quintillion years from now, this is
precisely the attitude that led to the Y2K bug and
the ioctl interface. We as concerned Linuxians must
take on these responsibilities that the commercial
world shirks. If we fix this problem now, it could
very well be a one-line kernel patch; if we wait
nine quintillion years, who knows how many computers
will be running with this patch throughout the vast
reaches of the galaxy? Moreover, our descendants will
probably be tightly integrated with their computer
systems. On January 1, '27, they will all suddenly
stop processing commands, sitting dull and lifeless
until the end, unless we act now!
Marcelo, please don't drop
this patch! The future of all
life may well depend on you!

Andries Brouwer, who has maintained the
kernel man pages for more than ten years,
along with the man program itself, util-linux and kbd, has had enough.
Although
these venerable and important projects must continue, Andries would like
to move on to other things and recently requested that someone step up
to replace him. Michael Kerrisk has taken over man pages, but the other
tools remain up in the air. Until suitable replacements are found, he will
undoubtedly continue to issue releases of the software, but folks who are
interested in taking over those projects should do a Web search to see if they
are still available, and contact him if they are.

Ed Schouten has taken the first step toward
porting Linux to the Xbox, creating a configuration
option for it. While a Linux port to the Xbox is
hungrily desired by Xbox users, some developers have
expressed skepticism that any Xbox patches should be
accepted. The reason? No Linux port can run on that
system unless the user opens up the box and makes
alterations to the hardware. There are actually
several perspectives on this. David
Weinehall,
the Linux kernel 2.0 series maintainer, sees the
Xbox as an embedded system and supports patches
that help Linux be a better embedded OS. To embedded
developers, the requirement that you have to hack the
hardware in order to run Linux on a given system is
really merely a side issue. Xbox folks, on the other
hand, see the official kernel sources as the best
place for Xbox support, because distributions like
Debian so far have been reluctant to add support
unless the official kernel tree does. Meanwhile,
hard-core kernel hackers who feel that Linux should
run on all available hardware, consider the Xbox
to be just another system to port to, and therefore
a very desirable target. Linus Torvalds already
rejected an Xbox patch a year ago, but he has been
known to change his mind. And although there are some
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) issues surrounding the Xbox,
the developers of the Linux port have looked into
the law and believe that everything they are doing
conforms with the requirements of the DMCA.

There's a fine line between innovation and
blunder. Some developers feel Linus
Torvalds
has made some errors in judgment regarding recent
kernel numbering schemes. After the 2.6.8 release, a
horrible bug was found that necessitated an immediate
fix. This was not the error in judgment, but
a normal part of software development, which
typically would have been followed by a bug-fix release
and getting on with development. But instead of
releasing 2.6.9 right away with the fix, Linus put out
a 2.6.8.1 release. This addition of a fourth version
number is unheard of in kernel development and broke
a lot of tools that relied on the previous numbering
scheme. Then later, when 2.6.9 was about to come out,
one of the kernel releases was called 2.6.9-final. The
final was unusual and apparently meant that this
version was indeed the official 2.6.9 kernel.

But, lo and behold, three days later another release,
this one actually called 2.6.9, came out. So what did
the final mean in 2.6.9-final? This again broke
many scripts and prompted Russell King to
remark in disgust, “I, for one, no longer believe in
any naming scheme associated with mainline.” Matt
Mackall was the first to voice a loud objection
to the way Linus has been handling version numbers
in recent kernels, but his voice was quickly joined
by Cliff White, who spoke on behalf of the
entire Open Source Development Labs group, the very
group that employs Linus to do kernel work. Russell,
Geert Uytterhoeven, Christoph Hellwig
and Martin J. Bligh, all longtime Linux developers,
also spoke out against the numbering anomalies.

First Look: Novell Linux Desktop

When Novell first bought GNOME development shop Ximian
and then the KDE-centric SuSE, we all got curious
about what kind of Linux product would result from
this strange breeding experiment. The answer is
Novell Desktop Linux, which combines SuSE's strong
hardware detection and configuration with a clean
desktop toolset based on Ximian Evolution,
OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox.

Both KDE and GNOME are available, but either way you
get a set of best-of-breed tools, not a doctrinaire
load of all one or the other. Under GNOME, for
example, KDE's K3b is the default CD burner.

With distributions converging on the same set of
applications, one area where there's still competitive
advantage is in hardware support and configuration
tools. SuSE Professional has been the champion here
for several releases, and NDS inherits its abilities.
We set up a Wacom Graphire tablet and a dual-headed
display with just point and click.

Unlike the full SuSE, no digital
camera software seems to be installed, and none is available
from the on-line update system—make that systems.
NDS provides both SuSE's YaST and Ximian's Red
Carpet. Both are installed, and both provide the
ability to add and remove software. This is unduly
confusing for administrators coming over from other
platforms. “Install both and let the user decide”
is Linux vendor-speak for what the real world calls
“Make sure every administrator sets it up a little
different so every time you have a personnel change
you end up breaking something.”

Fans of our contributing editor Robert Love will be
happy to see his new netapplet installed by default.
Just click and drag to switch from wired to wireless
networking or select among wireless access points.
Now you'll be able to bring up wireless networking
without embarrassment, even if there's a Mac OS X
user watching.

There are two schools of thought on supporting legacy
Microsoft Windows applications on a Linux desktop:
either install a Windows emulation environment such
as CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office on each Linux box
that needs it, or move the Windows applications to a
system running a remote desktop such as Citrix ICA and
put only a remote desktop client on the Linux boxes.

NDS is ready to handle the remote desktop out of
the box, with gnomepro.com's Terminal Server Client
installed by default. It supports RDP, VNC and ICA.
If the number of IBM 3270 terminal applications now
running in 3270 emulators is any guide, many customers
will choose to keep Windows applications around for
a long time. Because it's unlikely that there will
be emulator support for all the industry-specific
apps out there, this feature is key for business
Linux projects.

One piece of functionality we didn't get to put
through a test is the Novell iFolder Linux Client,
which synchronizes user data files with a server.
It's certainly easiest to administer desktop systems
when user data is on the file server and every hard
drive outside the server room is disposable. In a
laptop-centric company, that old-school approach
doesn't work, but we have high hopes for iFolder as
the answer to keeping a safe copy of laptop users'
data.

Novell Linux Desktop combines the look of a clean,
professional desktop with one of the most adaptable
underlying Linux distributions. Although there's
still some simplifying and refactoring to do in the
software deployment area, the desktop is ready for
regular users and a good candidate for your next
Linux desktop pilot project.

Ten Years Ago in LJ: February 1995

Matt Welsh covered a two-process technique for writing
GUI applications in a combination of Tcl/Tk and C.
He forks off an instance of the wish shell from his C
program, then has his C program write Tcl/Tk commands
down a pipe and get strings back as text.

We listed the phone numbers of seven BBSs, running
at 14.4kbps, that offered access to download
Linux-related files. We also covered the first two
Linux vendors to exhibit at the Comdex tradeshow
in Las Vegas: Yggdrasil Computing, Inc., and Morse
Telecommunication.

In the issue's only all-German ad, S.u.S.E. Linux,
advertised a German-language Doppel-CD-ROM
distribution that included an ahead-of-its-time “Live”
CD and a 200-page Handbuch on installation
and configuration.

They Said It

Q. Why did you choose the Linux operating system?

A. The Linux system provides a flexible environment where we can add
features and options as we learn what customers like and don't like
about the product. It allows us to offer a much more sophisticated
graphical user interface, and provides support for networking and PC
peripheral connectivity.

My design style was open to things that might not work....Sometimes to
really achieve something that's great and a step forward, you have to
take these risks, not even knowing if it's going to work. You can't be
that smart about everything. And if [you'd] done it before, you just
have to be smart enough to put the atoms together and build the molecules.

When you think about it, it makes sense. Linux and open source products
are cheaper, more robust and more secure. Having Microsoft tell us that
their products have lower TCO is like them telling us that the Earth is
flat. Right-thinking CIOs know that Linux and open source software
result in lower costs and are not likely to be hoodwinked by verbal
sleight-of-hand or spurious, vendor-manipulated TCO studies.

On the Web

Looking for more from your favorite
LJ authors? Many of them also write columns for our
Web site. Visit our site and select RSS Links to read their new columns as soon as
they are posted.

Ever wonder why, in these modern capitalist times, so much of your
identity is determined by the cards you carry in your wallet—cards
issued by everyone but you?
In “What's Your i-Name?” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/7888), Senior Editor Doc
Searls introduces some of the first players in the grass-roots identity
movement. Find out what your future technological identity might look
like—better yet, get involved in determining it yourself.

Our audio expert, Dave Phillips, has been writing a Linux MIDI series
for the Web site, and his brief survey is no longer so brief. Linux
audio software and hardware has been making huge strides in the past
year or so, and Dave wants to let you know about everything now
available for your music-making needs. He kicked off the series by
outlining the history of MIDI technology, in
“Linux MIDI: a Brief Survey, Part 1” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/7773). “Part
2” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/7912) is a guide to
various Linux MIDI sequencers and “Part
3” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/7918) looks at
some helpful MIDI utilities.

Back in the August 2003 issue, Faye Coker wrote an introductory article
to Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux). Now that SELinux is the default
configuration for Fedora Core 3, Faye is back with a Web column on
various features and functions of SELinux. Her first article explains
“What's New in Fedora Core 3 SELinux” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/7887), and she covers strict
vs. targeted policies, changes to the SELinux base directory and some
future plans.

As Linux continues to play an ever increasing role in corporate data centers and institutions, ensuring the integrity and protection of these systems must be a priority. With 60% of the world's websites and an increasing share of organization's mission-critical workloads running on Linux, failing to stop malware and other advanced threats on Linux can increasingly impact an organization's reputation and bottom line.

Most companies incorporate backup procedures for critical data, which can be restored quickly if a loss occurs. However, fewer companies are prepared for catastrophic system failures, in which they lose all data, the entire operating system, applications, settings, patches and more, reducing their system(s) to “bare metal.” After all, before data can be restored to a system, there must be a system to restore it to.

In this one hour webinar, learn how to enhance your existing backup strategies for better disaster recovery preparedness using Storix System Backup Administrator (SBAdmin), a highly flexible bare-metal recovery solution for UNIX and Linux systems.